


Travel Dangers

by DynamicKea



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Creepers are Cruel, Explosions, Gen, Mystcraft Theories, Nobody Dies, TV tropes inspired, implied character deaths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-16 15:12:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3493022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DynamicKea/pseuds/DynamicKea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five minutes ago, the three of them were gathered around a dimensional book. But five minutes ago is buried in the past, and it isn't coming back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Travel Dangers

 

Five minutes ago, the three had been crowded around a glowing book.

Lalna was the one that had found it, deep in yet another temple in the desert. It had been sitting neatly on a glowing pedestal. He had honestly been expecting it to blow up in his face when he had stolen it. But it didn't, which his limbs were thankful for at least.

Since the last dimensional book they had “mysteriously combusted,” and _certainly_ had nothing to do with Xephos trying to see if they could reprint it into a purely ore filled world, the spaceman had been fairly keen to see if this one would be a good replacement.

Of course, there was a problem. Mainly that none of them could read what was in the book. Since these book-portal thingys were designed to describe what world was in them, having no clue what it said was already a cause for alarm. It wasn’t Dwarfish, or Human, or even whatever kind of alien Xephos was. It also was not any of the various collection of languages Lalna knew, among them Dragontongue, Goblin and Trob.

Since they had already spent the entire day failing to translate it, the remaining option was to jump in. But not stupidly, of course. Earpieces, destabilising matrices, extraction orbs on stand by, a transmission coil, and of course the ever present linking book on each of their person’s, these all were designed to ensure their safety.

Five minutes ago, the three had been hovering around the book like bees near a flower (don’t tell Honeydew). The three of them had exchanged glances, each asking the others to check, just one more time, if everything was actually working.

Of course, this only continued until Honeydew had gone “balls to this,” and jumped into the portal.

_‘Jaffa-One frequency, check one. Lalna?’_

‘Received, I hear you, Honeydew.’

 _‘Thank fucking christ,’_ Honeydew’s voice crackled.

Lalna readjusted the earpiece in his, well, his ear. ‘So it’s working then? You’re on the other side?’

Xephos peered at the machinery pointed at the dimensional book. ‘Honeydew, is the pocket dimension stable?’

Both the spare speakers dotted around the room and earpiece triggered again, a rusty fiss constantly rolling under Honeydew’s words. _‘Uh. Yes? There’s no black shit all over the place. No explosions either from the looks of things.’_

‘Data, Honeydew. _Translation applicable_ data.’ Lalna bent over the screen on the machine, quickly typing. ‘We need to know what this book says. We don't want any shitty surprises when we're mining in there.’

Xephos stepped towards the book. Blots of white particles were falling from it. These speaks of light were forming a great big portal against the wall, a white doorway into a whole new world.

 _‘Sun looks normal, only one of them. No moon as far as I can see. Plus the sun started at the horizon. Uh...’_ Honeydew paused. _‘I’m standing on an ice field. Oh god-’_

There was a splash and a sputtering sound. _‘Fuck! It’s bloody well freezing!’_

Xephos burst out laughing. ‘Do you want me to bring a spare change of clothes?’ Xephos said teasingly.

 _‘Hold on, lemmie get to land first. Shit.’_ Sounds of spluttering and coughing and something shoving its way through water came from the earpiece. _‘Ah! Land! Sweet, precious land! Uh, and clothes would be great.’_

Xephos stretched and headed for the normal door. ‘So long as you make a landing platform before you come ba-’

The spaceman opened the door.

Lalna heard it. The door being dragged along the floor while Xephos continued his banter. Lalna had shifted to another monitor on the other side of the room. Then came the intake of breath, the choked gasp of fright that echoed through the earpiece. Then was the backwards stumbling of instincts screaming to _back off back away move move NOW_ and an ankle being thrown to one side by a loose wire.

Lalna would curse himself later for being too occupied, too slow, to damn _late_ to glance up in those vital few seconds before everything blew up in their faces.

Or rather, before the creeper blew up on Xephos’s face.

Lalna looked up in time to see a flash of darkness and the punch of heat. He looked up in time to see machines being vapourised in an instant. He looked up in time to see Xephos, silhouetted against the white portal, and the creeper in the centre of the doorway detonating. He looked up in time to see terror, panic, confusion and the expression that meant _pain incoming and I can’t stop it_ cross over Xephos’s face before, before....

 

Lalna was half curled under what had been his monitor’s array desk. The labcoat was mockingly untouched, not even the barest scrap of rubble on him. His hair was untouched too, none of the dust hovering in the air had been combed through his hair. His fingers weren’t bloody or broken, but for how they shook they may as well have been.

In his hands sat his earpiece, turned up to maximum, on loudspeaker, as high as it could safely go and then even more.

‘Honeydew? Xephos?’ Lalna repeated. ‘Jaffa-One, Jaffa One frequency. Check. Check Two. This is Lalna, check Two.’

Something fell over. Was it the destabilising matrix? Designed to force the book to shut off and eject any foreign parties from its inners, it was one of the later safeties the three had made. They tested it. It worked. They’d pop out right where the portal had been. They tested it. They made sure. They checked every possible circumstance for it.

‘This is Lalna on frequency Jaffa One. That’s frequency 10.1.6.6.1.15.14.5. Check Two.’

Could it have been an extraction orb? Those were clever. They were based off ender pearls and ender eyes. It emitted a homing signal, made to track on each of the three. In case of an emergency and one or more of the three friends being cut off from reality, they form their own little portal. A portal the exact right size for them to clamber out of whatever reality trapped them.

‘This is Lalna.’ Lalna shook the earpiece slightly. ‘Lalna. Please respond. Xephos, Honeydew, please respond. Check Two.’

Something else clattered to the ground. One of the thick coils of cable that had been bringing power through the ceiling. Its tip hit the floor with a meaty smack.

‘Hello? Please respond. Check Two, this is Check Two. Establish contact.’

The room felt too big. The lights had flicked off, the hum of machines had died. Scales littered the floor before the portal. Or, what was left of it. Purple motes of light flickered and died, barely lighting the room and certainly not big enough to jump through. Definitely not big enough to scan. Half the machines were gone and the rest were torn to shreds by the dark light.

‘Please. One of you. Either of you. Check o-one. Two. I meant two. Please, p-please, check. Please check.’

Lalna’s head pitched forward and pressed the cold earpiece against his forehead. The cold was almost immediately sucked away by the boiling adrenaline rushing through him.

'Please.'

The only sound was a crackle of static and the echo of his own voice. The door was still open, still welcoming the night. The darkness was also beckoning monsters, but Lalna didn’t notice.

Why hadn’t he just gone outside and make sure that all the outer doors were sealed shut? Just two minutes was all it would have taken to go outside, check all the doors, windows, hatches, everything. Why didn’t he check?

Five minutes ago, his friends had been joking and laughing around a book. Five minutes later there weren’t any tears running down Lalna’s numb expression. There was just a blank look and a clear voice, still listening.

'Come back.'

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by this entry on the TV Tropes WMG page for Yogscast Minecraft:
> 
> "Shadow of Israphel happened while Lewis and Simon were stuck in a Mystcraft book  
> A stable mystcraft world with no book out could, unless you found a star fissure, be indistinguishable from a single self contained world. Duncan was absent (fumblemore doesen't count for obvious reasons), despite being part of the main group from the start. assuming that Galacticraft really is an early arc, the group could have had a Mystcraft accident landing them there." (sic)


End file.
